The retaining walls are the Wills arches, painted and dry brushed to get that weathered and battered look, and the road textures are printed from the Scalescenes ones, but cut into strips to represent a surface that has been patched and redone several times over many years. I will be adding some weeds and dirt as well later.

I have just taken a little video footage of the three industrial locomotives from Hornby at work through Newton Broadway, during a quiet moment at home. I really must improve the lighting before I try another such film, but this doesn't look too bad.

The Sentinel diesel hauling some milk tanks rocks and rolls a bit but I think the effect is actually quite good, if unintended. Following it is the Huntley & Palmers Peckett with a few open wagons, while on the other side a de-named Dodo passes with a few vans.

Just for a little fun, I posed the industrial locomotives all together. There are the three Hornby Pecketts, numbered 4, 5, and 6 for DCC purposes, the Bachmann ex-GWR 57XX pannier tank numbered 9 (I originally chose 8, forgetting that my London Transport Bo-Bo electric was number 8, Sherlock Holmes), and the Hornby Sentinel diesel, numbered 10.

I removed the printed names and numbers on the Pecketts and Sentinel using some T-Cut. I have some etched name and number plates on order, which will confirm their identities and make it easier to select the right locomotive (I am using memory at the moment!).

On the workbench, I have made a little progress with the Golden Arrow Productions unrebuilt Merchant Navy. I decided that the tender's side profile was too flat, so attacked it with various coarse and fine files. It is now much closer in profile to the cab side profile.

In spite of the evidence in the second photo, the tender and loco bodies are both painted in the same green, from the same tin!

I managed to get some 'quiet time' this morning, so set up the camera wagon behind the DJ Models class 71 for a change (usually when I am doing a model "cab ride" I have the wagon being pushed in front of the locomotive).

I have demonstrated some, but not all of the features of the locomotive and legomanbiffo sounds. For the record, the speed was settled at step 50 (out of 126) on my NCE Pro Cab.

Sounds include the roar of the traction motor blower (I think I need more bass for this, so a larger, bass reflex speaker may be finding its way into the locomotive in the future), the two slightly different air whistle tones (F2 and F3), the marker lights (F0 - left on to give the locomotive some 'presence' in the darkness of the tunnels), directional cab lights (F19), cab door slam (F6), and the lovely compressor sound (F7).

As you can see, the LokSound v4 decoder seems to have no problems with controlling the locomotive smoothly. It was originally set for a class 350 (hence the written label visible in an earlier photo I took) but I did a reblow with 'Bif's sounds late last year, and have changed nothing in the settings except the volume (CV63).

A video of one of the Hornby Pecketts (ex-Dodo) running around Newton Broadway. I actually had the idea to do this with the wagons behind the locomotive before taking the video of the DJM class 71 above, but someone had asked about the legomanbiffo sounds so I took that footage first.

There are a couple of photographs at the end of the video showing just how powerful these little engines are.

The etched name and number plates from Narrow Planet for the industrial locomotives arrived today, and very nice they are too. The Pecketts have also received etched works plates.

I have fitted them to the three Pecketts and Private Owner pannier tank, with a few more (mainly numbers) left to go on some of the other locos. You'll notice I have gone with a theme of female names starting with "A".

Starting with Huntley & Palmers Peckett, that has become no. 4, Amelia, with a slightly different treatment to the others (mainly because I still haven't been able to bring myself to remove the lovely H & P signwriting yet). The number plate hides the letter D which acted as its fleet "number".

The 'generic' Peckett green one, ex-Dodo, has now become no. 5, Alice.

MSC green Peckett, ex-no. 11, is now no. 6, Alexandria (based on its real name at one time in the past).

The pannier tank has become no. 9 (with transfers for numbers),Ashleigh (with full-sized plates), named after my good friend Doug's daughter. Besides the fact my wife and I have a fair bit to do with Doug's children, the significance is that Ashleigh owns a GWR pannier tank on Doug's layout. I also ordered Peckett plates with the same name for Doug to use on his Peckett.

And here's one of the three Pecketts all lined up.

I will order a few more plates to add to the collection, particularly for the J94 which arrived after the original order was sent to Narrow Planet. Currently, that bears the number 10 and the name Harry. I am thinking that should become Agnes, after my wife. After all, she was the one who persuaded me to buy it and even went shares in it!

I have been taking advantage of the long weekend to improve some of the electrics under Newton Broadway, in turn leading to improvements in signalling and lighting.

I started by wiring up a 12 segment "chocolate block" connector, so that the two DCC output wires from my NCE Power Pro command station now have five extra loops each on one side of the chocolate block, allowing easy connection on the other side for dcc track, accessory and signalling take-offs.

The first use was for three of Train-Tech's new sensor signals. For the LT lines, all are 2-aspect signals. I had experimentally cleared some ballast and used the track contacts on two of these signals, but I really wanted to separate the DCC feeds to the signals. For the third one, I ran a couple of bus wires from the chocolate block at the command station end to the far end of the layout, where a smaller chocolate block (3 segments) provides connection to the signal. I snipped off the under-track connector arms as per Train-Tech's instructions, then soldered wires to the two terminals indicated. These wires were connected into the smaller chocolate block terminal.

This signal has a "feather", with five white lights showing (I know, LT tended to only have three lights - I may paint out two light lenses later). I followed he instructions for programming them as accessories, although something didn't quite match my plans: as the feather means this signal replaces a 2-headed junction signal, I intended the main signal to be #18 and the feather to be #19, matching the original track diagram I have. However, the signal decoder had other ideas and insisted on the feather being operated as #18. Not a great problem as I have two of Train-Tech's mimic switches on order to control this and a second similar signal at the other end of the LT tracks (one that was then plugged into the track). The mimic switches will also allow me to override the green aspect if a train remains in the station sections ahead.

Today, I treated the other two sensor signals to the same wiring treatment, and allocated addresses 1 and 2 to the red/green override and feather aspects, respectively (this one worked according to plan!). The remaining one is at the tunnel mouth and is still fully automatic.

Later on, I want to insert a couple of these 2-aspect signals in the tunnel sections themselves, feeding back to the previous signals in each direction. That will await a few experiments, as I am not sure they will work properly in the darkness of the tunnels - I may actually have to add a directional light on the opposite side of the track to each such signal to operate the sensors properly. We shall see!

I have snapped off a couple of photos on the mobile phone of the initial installation, showing green with feather, and red after triggering the sensor. Sorry about the lens distortion.

I am definitely happy with the results so far, even with the slight compromise in appearance caused by the visible electronics and connectors adjacent to the signal posts.

​Next I'll have to add the ladders and other detailing bits Train-Tech provide. I thought it better to get all the heavy handling out of the way first.

A very small but important improvement to the corner shop in Newton Broadway village: I have used a little Wills stone paving to create a door step/ ramp and some Peco stone walling to add an extension downwards from floor level to street level. I still have to add pavements, but these small additions make it look a lot more convincing.

My new camera wagon arrived today. The old Mainline/Bachmann bogie bolster wagon was very good in all but one respect; that one exception was the couplings, which were the old Mainline-style medium fittings, not easily changeable to anything else.

The new Hattons/Bachmann Warwell has come, and I selected the type with the bolster extensions to provide a level platform for the camera. The wheels run true (like my previous wagon) and the wagon is heavy for good stability.

For a long time I have had a part-built Ratio provender store sitting on the layout near Newton Broadway station - a location it doesn't actually belong to at all! Anyway, I decided to start building again. However, I can't find the instruction sheet at present, so I have had to wing it a bit.

I decided to replace all the printed wooden floors and battens with Wills wood planking. Any inaccuracies in the positions of joints will not really be visible unless someone inspects the interior with a strong light and a magnifying glass. I have simplified the wall battens a bit too but, again, it won't really be visible.

There is more to do and the roof is currently just sitting perched loosely on top, but it is taking shape.

Does anyone out there have an instruction sheet they could scan in and send to me, please?

In the meantime, here are some photos of the progress. the right-hand door is hanging a little crookedly, but I might just leave it like that; the effect is actually not bad.

For a bit of fun, I made a video up showing a variety of trains running through Newton Broadway station. There is a bit of steam, some diesels and electrics, locomotives, DEMU and EMU stock, freight and passenger all included. The time periods / eras are mixed up too, but I have kept appropriate locomotives on the right trains for the eras. At the end, there is a GBRf class 66, 66 701 Whitemoor, on Freightliner HHA wagons; that was due to the failure of Freightliner 66 610 that was supposed to haul that train (a failed decoder, which has now been replaced).

While I have many more locomotives not shown here, the video would have been way too long if I had attempted to include even half of them. Some of you may argue that it is too long anyway ... just turn it off if that's the case. :D

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